Alumni
1. Prize for the Wise
Education pioneer Patrick Awuah, MBA 99, founder and president of Ashesi University College in Ghana, was named the sixth WISE Prize for Education Laureate—a Nobel of sorts for contributions to education. The award includes a $500,000 prize that Awuah gifted back to Ashesi. Awuah started the school in 2002 to educate ethical, entrepreneurial leaders who will help transform Africa. The school now has six degree programs, over 1,000 alumni, and 870 students with a student-to-faculty ratio of 22:1. The WISE Prize was established in 2011 by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser. The previous winner was Dr. Sakena Yacoobi, known as Afghanistan’s mother of education, who has spent two decades rebuilding her country’s educational landscape.
Research
2. Thought Leaders
Look for insights from your own professors in a special 60th anniversary California Management Review. Published last fall, the issue features all Haas faculty content that ties into our mission to develop leaders who redefine how we do business. From incentives for innovation to recognizing women’s unique qualities as negotiators to cross-sector affiliations.
Marketing
3. What’s in a Wordmark?
You may have noticed a new look for our Berkeley Haas wordmark, one that uses the colors and font of UC Berkeley combined with the modern tone of Haas. A wordmark conveys principles and values and needs to be immediately recognizable. This design makes it clear that Haas is part of the world’s best university. It also allows us to showcase what Haas is known for. There’s an energy in the combination, tradition meets progress in a wordmark that is digitally nimble, distinct, and recognizable for Berkeley Haas.
Celebration
4. Happy Birthday #Haasculture!
Our Defining Leadership Principles—Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself—turned eight this spring and the school celebrated with Haas Culture Day. “Leaders set culture,” Dean Rich Lyons, BS 82, said at the event. “You can’t think about leadership without thinking about setting norms and values.” Codifying Haas culture has paid off. Poets & Quants described Haas as “the archetype for a values-driven MBA program.”
Rankings
5. The B-School for Women
Fueled by high alumnae salaries, the Full-time Berkeley MBA Program ranks #2 among U.S. schools and #3 in the world for women, according to the Financial Times. Haas ranks #2 worldwide for how well female Berkeley MBAs achieved their aims. Nearly half the ranking, which looked at the Class of 2014, is based on career success. With an average salary of $179,930 three years post-MBA, Haas alumnae were the second highest paid in the world, earning slightly more than their class overall.
Accolades
6. Top-Notch Teacher
Haas Senior Lecturer Holly Schroth, who has taught negotiation and conflict resolution skills to undergrad, graduate, and executive education students since 1992, was honored by Poets & Quants in their inaugural list of the Top 40 Undergraduate Business Professors. Schroth employs exercise simulations in the classroom—lessons students praised for being “relatable and memorable.”
Faculty Honors
7. Coming Up Rose
Prof. Andrew Rose, an international finance scholar who has taught macroeconomics to three decades of Berkeley Haas students, received the school’s highest faculty honor: the Williamson Award. Named after Nobel Laureate and Haas Prof. Emeritus Oliver Williamson, the award honors Haas faculty who exemplify the attitudes and behaviors that differentiate our school. Rose’s research addresses international trade, finance, currency and exchange rates, and economic crises. He’s worked as an advisor to a multitude of economic agencies. At Haas, Rose has gone beyond himself to mentor colleagues and give back to the school. He served as associate dean of academic affairs and chair of the faculty from 2010 to 2016.
Entrepreneurship
8. Founders Keepers
Sexual harassment claims and unethical business practices often mean the undoing of traditional CEOs, but not for leaders of startups, says Steve Blank, an entrepreneurship lecturer at Haas. Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick, for example, remained unscathed despite months of mounting scandals until key investors finally staged a revolt that led to his ouster. In Blank’s article, “When Founders Go Too Far,” published in the Nov.-Dec. 2017 issue of Harvard Business Review, he details how founders, no longer replaced early on with “professional CEOs,” have come to dominate their boardrooms, a power balance that can negatively affect employees, customers, and investors. Blank details the shifts that have allowed founders to control the majority of voting shares and board seats. He also offers solutions for more equitable startup oversight. “Founder-friendly” venture capitalists, for example, should pair inexperienced CEOs with seasoned chief operating officers early on, as Facebook did with COO Sheryl Sandberg. VCs should set guidelines concerning investing in companies where the founder has voting control. And boards should have independent directors and chair and an influential and independent audit committee.
Cryptocurrency
9. Blockchain Reactions
Berkeley Haas was mentioned in the New York Times and named by BusinessBecause.com as one of the five best U.S. b-schools for teaching blockchain—the decentralized and encrypted method of tracking cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin. Read about one class, Blockchain, Cryptoeconomics, and the Future of Technology, Business, and Law on the blog of MBA/JD student Josh Ephraim. Blockchain at Berkeley is a student-run organization serving the campus and greater East Bay communities, including alumni.